I don’t have a tonne of time this weekend, so here’s a video I stumbled upon a little while ago and have been waiting for a chance to share. Without wanting to sound too much like Professor Brian Cox, there are plenty of amazing things in our world. Many of them are extremely famous but there are many more that you may never have heard of. Here’s a quick run down of 10 incredible natural wonders that you may not have seen before, courtesy of All Time Top 10.

I just got back from the Eagle Awards. I’ll write a proper report up about it at a later date but for now it should suffice to say that they were a lot of fun and there was a lot of free beer. With that in mind, I’ll refrain from going into anything too complex on this week’s DS.

Here is a super high res image of our planet looking all sexy and stuff. That’s pretty much all you need to know about it other than it’s Russian.

It’s been a little while since I gave some space to landscape photography here on Dropping Science so I figured it was time to rectify that. There are few things that get me more excited about the possibilities of space than a good piece of time-lapse footage of the milky way and Sheldon Neill and Colin Delehanty’s study of Yosemite National Park certainly fits that criteria.

Captured using the Canon 5D Mark II, the film showcases some of the best aspects of one of the world’s greatest beauty spots. I’ve been lucky enough to visit Yosemite in the past and seeing it again here, my breath is taken away all over again.

Since we do like to snap a picture or two on our big Moony travels, we thought it would be cool to share our top 5 photos from the past year’s adventures. Enjoy!

5. Moon and Ray Live!

This was taken at the launch party for Moon #1. Actor Lee Ravitz is the artistic basis for Moon’s stoic partner Ray Barton and he was good enough to take a few minutes to help guide Moon through the first instalment of their adventures. I can’t help but feel that reading your own comic is kind of cheating, but what the hey. (photo my Imogen Banks)

4. The Saddest Moon That Ever There Was

When we attended the MCM Expo this past October, we brought the Moon head with us and encouraged fans of the comic to put it on and pose for photos. Some were extremely willing, some were scarily willing, some (like this poor chap) were rather less so. He remains the most patient man I have ever met.

3. Moon Has Arrived!

This photo may not seem like much, but to Steve and I it’s one of the most important ones we’ve ever taken. This is issue 1 of our first comic, freshly opened one cold March morning, along with the confirmation for our first convention appearance. The 200 first edition copies seen in this photo sold out within a few weeks and have gone on to become minor collectors items. We even heard of one fan who had a copy framed in her baby’s nursery!

2. Moon Cub

We’ve had quite a few sketches of Moon drawn for us by other creators over the last year. In all honesty, I could have posted any of them as they’re universally wonderful but this sketch of Moon as a lion cub by Matt from Moo & Keo is particularly great due to it’s total silliness. It’s also about as close as we’ll ever get to cracking the cutesy market.

1. Beyond The Bunker Launce Night

It seems silly to post a picture of ourselves (albeit with other people) in this list, but it’s the nature of those people that makes this one worthy of sharing. From left to right in the middle we have Alistair Reith (artistic basis for Shades Rodriguez) Drummond Bowskill (without whom we would have struggled to put the night on at all) and Lee Ravitz (artistic basis for Ray Barton). The BTB launch night was an absolute tonne of fun to put on and the number of people that turned up was simply staggering for a new indy comic. We intend to do the same again for Moon #2 but sadly we have to find a new venue as the old one won’t have us back after we blew up their sound system and woke up the neighbours. It was about as appropriate a way to kick off this grand adventure as I can think of and this photo pretty much encapsulates that feeling for me. Oh, Steve and I are in there too, but you don’t have to look at us if you don’t want to.

Buzzfeed posted up an interesting article the other day which took us inside one of Amazon’s gigantic warehouses. Along with inspiring a plethora of Ark of the Covenant jokes, these photos give a bit of a sense of just how enormous Amazon is. Next time you click to buy your Christmas gifts, spare a thought for the poor guy walking these mile long isle!

We’ve not had any mind blowing nature photography for a while so I thought we should fix that oversight. Fortunately film maker Tom Lowe has just released a trailer for his upcoming film, Timescapes and it fits the bill in every regard. Timescapes is a portrait of the American Southwest and if it’s half as good as the trailer it should be very pretty indeed.

I figured it had been a while since we last had some stunning footage of the night sky. Fortunately I recently discovered this video by Randy Halverson which easily sits alongside some of the very best such videos. As always, here’s a little bit from the man himself:

One of the challenges in making this video, was trying to get good storm with stars shots. The opportunity doesn’t come along very often, the storm has to be moving the right speed and the lightning can overexpose the long exposures. I had several opportunities this summer to get storm and star shots. In one instance, within a minute of picking up the camera and dolly, 70mph winds hit. One storm was perfect, it came straight towards the setup, then died right before it reached it.

As a special Easter egg , pause the video around the 1:57 mark for a glimpse of a Whitetail Buck appearing on the horizon. The animal poked around near the camera for about 10 mins but when translated to the full speed film, it’s gone in a flash.

This feature does kinda stray at times into “Dropping stunning photography” but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. Regular visitors to the blog will know what a fan I am of the work of Terje Sorgjerd and so it was probably only a matter of time before I had to post up his most recent work. Filmed between 29th April and 10th May 2011 in the Arctic, on the archipelago Lofoten in Norway, this is one of Sorgjerd’s finest works to date. I’d strongly suggest going to the vimeo page for this vid once you’ve finished here and reading his full account of the expedition, it’s true pioneer photography. Here’s a small snippet:

“Based on previous experience, I knew this was going to be a very difficult trip. Having lost a couple of cameras and some other equipment up there before, it was crucial to bring an extra set of everything. I also made sure I had plenty of time in case something went wrong. If you can imagine roping down mountain cliffs, or jumping around on slippery rocks covered in seaweed with 2 tripods, a rail, a controller, camera, lenses, filters and rigging for 4-5 hour long sequences at a time, and then having to calculate the rise and fall of the tides in order to capture the essence – it all proved bit of a challenge.”

We’re at the London Film and Comic Con all this weekend. Follow @danthompson2099 for regular updates.

I stumbled upon this article the other day and thought it was too cool to not share. For decades scores of ships have been slowly decomposing in a Suisun Bay, north of San Francisco. These ghost ships, officially called The National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) but more commonly called The Mothball Fleet, were supposed to be kept on standby in case of a national emergency, however the emergency never happened and the ships have long since fallen into ruin.

Over the last two years, a team of guerilla (or perhaps ‘pirate’) photographers led by a man named Scott Haefner have been sneaking aboard these ships in order to document this fascinating site before it vanishes forever. Risking prosecution, as well as the other things one risks when running around giant rusting ghost ships, they have conducted several clandestine missions to the fleet in order to bring back these amazing images.

The Fleet is due to be broken up once and for all over the next few years but thanks to the work of Haefner and his team, we still have a chance to experience these haunting images.

For a full gallery of the photos as well as the fascinating story of how the team infiltrated the ships in the first place, HAVE A LOOK AT THEIR WEBSITE.

Finally, here’s a google map so you can have a closer look from above of this rather spooky landmark.

A couple of weeks ago I posted THIS video by Norwegian photographer, Terje Sorgjerd. His images of the night sky have continued to blow me away every time I look them up, so I thought it was about time to share another fine example.

This is footage of one of the largest auroras in recent years, captured in and around Kirkenes and Pas National Park bordering Russia. I shan’t say any more about it as it speaks for itself, just watch and feel free to join me in awe.